Alleged use of stego - a new claim (updated)

[Nelson Minar]

>On October 10, there has been press reports that a UK company, 
>iomart, has unearthed coded messages on the Internet which may be 
>linked to Osama bin Laden.

The Register has a very skeptical take on this story:
  http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/22154.html

The last paragraph sums up the article:
  "But of course the proof, if it exists, has got to be classified, so
  we can't actually evaluate it independently. Funny that."


The steganography horseman has been all over in the past few weeks,
most recently in the US for an unprecedented agreement of the US media
to not broadcast the full content of messages from bin Laden, because
they may contain hidden messages:

  At worst, the broadcasts could contain signals to ``sleeper''
  agents, [White House spokesman Ari Fleischer] added. ``The concern
  here is not allowing terrorists to receive what might be a message
  from Osama bin Laden calling on them to take any actions.''

  http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20011010/us/attacks_hidden_message_5.html

I find it troubling that a deeply-held cornerstone of our country, the
free and independent press, has been compromised by ignorant
conceptions of "possible hidden messages". The real reason for this
agreement seems to be to deprive bin Laden of a propaganda channel,
which at least makes some sense, but they put up the steganography
smokescreen.


ObCryptography - are there any good documented cases of mathematical
steganography actually being used? I can't think of anything in David
Kahn's "The Codebreakers" beyond low-tech stuff like secret inks, etc.
Plenty of research into covert channels, but where has a
mathematically based stego system actually been used?

                                                     nelson at monkey.org
.       .      .     .    .   .  . . http://www.media.mit.edu/~nelson/



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